«Good Economics for Hard Times» arrives with an unusual credential: its authors, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, the same year of publication.
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The 2019 Nobel Prize economists apply experimental rigour to the great problems of our time — immigration, trade, climate, inequality, automation — defending evidence-based solutions over populism. An accessible, profound book showing how good economics can improve the world without easy recipes or ideology.
«Good Economics for Hard Times» arrives with an unusual credential: its authors, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, the same year of publication. The book is not a superficial popularisation — it is an honest, nuanced review of what experimental economics knows, and does not know, about the great debates of our time: immigration, free trade, inequality, climate change, and automation. Banerjee and Duflo apply the same evidentiary standards to the dogmas of the economic right and left alike, making the book uncomfortable for readers seeking confirmation of prior beliefs. The prose is direct and accessible without sacrificing rigour, with consistent references to randomised trials and field experiments. The main limitation is that the authors are more confident in their diagnoses than in their policy prescriptions, some of which are deliberately tentative. For investors interested in macroeconomics and in the structural forces shaping developed and emerging economies, this book offers a data-driven analytical framework in place of ideology.
Recommended for readers interested in applied economics and policy who want to understand current major debates through empirical evidence rather than ideology.
FactAbhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo received the Nobel Prize in Economics in October 2019, the same year the book was published.
